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One could argue that life is all a series of risks. Sometimes we remain in a state of ignorant bliss. Other times, we are aware of risks and take measures to mitigate it. But sometimes we choose to accept the risk.

Accepting risk is not a bad thing. Quite the opposite. Without risk acceptance, there would be no innovation. The reservoir of great ideas would dry up and bankers would have to make do make ends meet with mere six figure bonuses. Risk acceptance is the grown up thing to do. “We understand the risk, and chose to accept it. It’s the cost of doing business.”

But the question is whether some of the risks businesses accept are “unreasonable”. Like creating a toy that captures children’s information. Such as their name, address, birthday, photo, parents details, and allergies – then taking this information and putting it on an insecure website. We don’t mean a website that is accessible over HTTP minus the S. But a website so insecure that it makes OWASP training websites look ‘military grade secure’ by comparison.

Thankfully though, whenever a company is breached and millions of customer records are exposed – a company can merely shrug and say sorry. All the time while assuring they ‘take security seriously’. Customers don’t like it. Troy Hunt will upload the data to haveibeenpwned.com and the world will grit their teeth and take it. This is the seedy world of corporate risk acceptance. The terrifying underbelly of cyber-actuarial tables (if such a thing exists).

The point is that you can’t innovate and deliver new functionality to customers by building a secure website. Or waste precious time ensuring your hardware is hacker-proof. If you do, your competitors will have leapfrogged you. Not to mention, no customer would want to pay a premium on your offering just because you say it’s more secure than the others.

Never let it be said that Host Unknown jumps on a bandwagon; they prefer to create their own path in this industry, and do things their way, whatever the personal cost. It explains a lot.

Therefore, Host Unknown is proud to announce the release of their very first “iAudioBlog”, an entirely new way of disseminating their unique viewpoints of the information security industry to even more of the masses discerning listening public. The more cynical of you may see this as simply a Podcast, but Host Unknown think of it as so much, much more than that. Even just getting the three egos into one room was challenging enough, let alone having to restrain Andy from his infosec tourettes, stop Jav from dominating everything by mentioning his new employer at every turn, and stop Thom falling asleep at regular intervals. How they even managed to get special guests to appear on such a show like this is simply just another sign of how committed they are to their craft.

Unfortunately host Unknown have had to conform to the strictures of modern iAudioBlog listening and have submitted their pilot blog to iTunes for review and dissemination through their “Podcast” channel. As soon as it is published we will inform everyone, but if you can wait, you can listen to it right her, right now!

Of course, this now means you can vote for Host Unknown in more than just the Best Security Video Blog, but also the Best Security Podcast. Host Unknown consider this a very reasonable quid pro quo.

The problem with running a competition with our presenters is that all to often they are all talk and no trousers (or shorts in Andy’s case). We didn’t think it was too much to ask for them to get together over lunch last week and decide who the winners are of our fabulous prize draw.

We were disappointed again.

Fingers were pointed, excuses were given and tempers were raised by Javvad, Thom and Andy respectively.

We can now however announce the winners after some quick executive decisions were made,so, in no particular order:

Congratulations everyone and thank you for taking part. Your comments will of course be taken vert, very seriously. Please contact us to arrange for delivery (2nd class) and don’t forget to send us a photo of you with your wonderful prizes!

Our collaboration with the Twist & Shout “Scrooge the CISO” film has gone down a storm, with critics and public claiming it to be “a masterpiece” and “absolute genius” which is quite surprising given our three presenters were involved.

We would like to keep the Christmas spirit alive for a few more weeks however, and so have decided to run a competition where you can win some exclusive and somewhat surprising prizes. The rules are simple:

Watch the film again by clicking on the above image. Feel free to hit refresh multiple times to ensure your true appreciation of our work is counted in terms of views.

Leave a comment exclaiming quite how much you enjoyed it. If you wish you could supply ideas for other films or other activities you think the boys should engage in.

You agree to send us photos of yourself with the prizes if you win. We reserve the right to edit and/or modify them as we see fit.

On Friday 23rd January at 12:00hrs GMT we will pick three lucky winners to win one of of the following prizes each:

Thom’s T-Shirt and glasses from the shoot, as well as a one of it’s kind signed photograph!